One highlight: "Wisconsin’s 63-point victory exemplified a lack of sportsmanship, compassion and mercy, but it crystallized a system that has made those concepts obsolete by encouraging the mighty to crush the weak"

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is a joke. Don't forget how much of a prick Dantonio is though. Come to think of it that's quite a douchey triumverate: Dantonio, Hope, and Bielema. Some might say Lynch is a jackass too but after the gum throwing debacle he is all right with me.

The poor guy coaches at Indiana. Beating us either of the last two years would have been the biggest win of his career, and he lost both to a close interception call and a cornerback blunder, respectively. I kind of feel bad for the guy, because he's at a Lions equivelant of college football right now.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I understand why it is considered "unsportsmanlike" and I have some sympathy for that view.

On the other hand, I do like the idea of playing your best for the whole game, and the "mercy" idea can almost seem more insulting to the other team. And as Chappell says in the article, it was on them to stop Wisconsin.

If you're playing D-I football, your first string should be able to stop just about anyone's 3rd string on a semi-consistent basis. Lynch's kids quit on him, plain and simple.

No, my Bielema hate stems from his first season where one of his kids purposely tried to wrench the knee of one Steve Breaston who was just KILLING the Badgers all day and after the game Bielema said he wouldn't punish him and actually came off as thinking it was a good play by his guy. Ever since that day, I've actually cared whether or not we beat him and his team.

I think it depends on the opponent. If you are playing one of the payout schools and you are pummelling them, your first string should be out after the first half. if your second string is still scoring then well...I don't know. If you are winning in the third quarter by a large margin, your frist string is still in and your running trick plays (Ahem...Mr. Classy Sweatervest guy), then that is running up the score.

If you do this against a conference opponent...remember what goes around comes around which I think is one of the reasons why you don't see huge blowouts in the NFL.

I think Hope and Dantonio are a whole other level of jerk because they are hypocrits - they profess to be all about helping young men succeed and running solid programs, then let multiple-offenders back on the team before important games or call out other schools academic credibility while their own players suffer. Say what you will about Bielema, but he ran up that score because a big score gets votes, and votes push his team closer to a BCS game and the massive paydays those games entail. It is a minor distinction, but one that places the first two in a class of douche by themselves.

Lack of sportsmanship is not putting up tons of points on a team. It is football. If you can't handle getting tons of points scored on your team, go play somewhere else. It also an in-conference game. If Beilema wants to do that, more power to him. It is his backups that are not getting PT if he is busy running up the score. However, if he does it against Charleston Southern or something then we might be getting into sportsmanship territory.

I think the bigger outrage is the New York Times not covering Auburn's Fairley getting selected for the Bronco Nagurski Award. If there is anyone guilty of being unsportsmanlike, it is Fairley. The things he did in the Georgia game alone are worth being banned from NCAA play.

Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that Bielema said that he put the backups in and then he didn't feel fair telling them not to play their hardest when that's what they hope and wait for the opportunity to do. You tell the first team to get the lead to win the game. When that seems like it' possible, you try for a cushion to put it out of reach, and to give your backups some in-game experience. I kind of agree that it wouldn't be fair to tell the backups not to try and score, but some of the play call decisions might have been different.

Theres no story here...........Wisconsin had their backups in the entire 4th quarter, its not their fault Indiana can't stop them.

And there isn't much motivation for Wisconsin to run it up since Margin of Victory was removed from the computer polls.......an 83-20 victory over Indiana doesn't impress voters anymore than a 62-20 victory would.

Also, is there supposed to be some unwritten rule in conference? If this score offends you, why is it ok for teams to routinely run it up to 70 or 80 points against no-name non-conference teams? Don't those kids feel just as bad?

I would bet that right now Indiana's most hated conference rival in football is Wisconsin. In fact, I'll bet that the IU basketball team might even have a little extra juice when they play the Badgers.

Now when we roll out next year and put up 83 plus on somebody we are going to look the the bully on the playground. This outrage isn't about Wisky putting up 17 short of a hundy this is about the bullies flexing their muscles. Boo freakin hoo they lost by 63, why can't they play fair and only score 72 and give the other team a hug at the end of the game! Sportsmanship goes two ways, we have all seen the coach who whines and cries "they beat us and didn't care about the kids feelings" whaaaaaa, whaaaaa, whaaaa. Lets say Indiana had won 83 to 20 then what? Would the New York Times have written the same article or would it have been, Wisconsin gets trounced by slower, smaller, younger, perennial loser from the University of Indiana! When I saw the score on espn, my reaction was wow, Whisky flexed their muscles thats all, no more no less.

I don't find that argument very convincing..........its Indiana, noone will discuss this game when they discuss Wisconsin's BCS chances. They will discuss 1. Their dismantling of OSU 2. Their win @ Iowa 3. Their loss to MSU 4. Their escape against ASU.

Noone cares if they won by 40 or 60, its friggin Indiana. The only time the game will be discussed is 1. to LOL at and 2. in the context of a stupid and very stale sportsmanship debate.

They don't really seem to know what they are doing. For example: Florida received 47 votes (making them the 29th in the poll) in late October, after losing three straight games to Bama, LSU and Mississippi State (and with wins over the super-impressive Miami (OH), USF, Tennessee and Kentucky).

The game was a lot different over 100 years ago. So was the concept of "sportsmanship," at least in football. Yost's teams were celebrated for doing this. The concept of football teams letting up when ahead as a paragon of sportsmanship seems to have been popularized in the 70's.

I'll bet you Yost's teams were also roundly hated by our opponents for doing this, too. Hell, everybody else in the Big Ten hated Bo for winning by scores like 56-0.

Powerful football teams have been running up the score on weak teams since the sport started over 130 years ago. It's never really bothered me; it's up to your opponent to keep you from scoring. If I was out on the field I wouldn't want my opponent to ease up on me out of pity or "sportsmanship." Just don't take cheap shots at my knees.

It's not fair! Just like how some people spend so much time and effort to post lots of good comments and material on the board and a casual user like me doesn't have the same number of points. Look at them, flexing their MGoPoint muscles...I mean, where's the mercy? Just because I don't work hard at posting means I should suffer in MGoPoints? Where's the writemanship...or...something... *throws gum*

/s

Wisky didn't do anything but let Michigan play Indiana's avenger. As much as I dislike the guy, Bielema didn't do anything wrong by letting his backups play hard and club Indiana with a baseball bat. If anything, shame on the Indiana players for giving up. Now, the 2-point conversion against Minnesota? That was a little less classy.

Just a thought. Some of the best teams in the history of the Big Ten were roaming the playing fields during Bo & Woody's days. These teams routinely hung half a hundred on B10 competition, so that isn't new. The problem is, those teams did it by primarily scoring on 5 to 6 straight possessions in the first half, 2 to 3 in the second half before calling off the dogs midway through the third quarter when the issue was clearly no longer in doubt. For wisky, the issue was no longer in doubt once Chappell went down with an injury. Folks, it was 38-10 at the half, and 59-13 and the end of the 3rd qtr...wtf!! And wisky scored another 24 pts...in the 4th quarter...and they were still throwing the ball! S-o-o-o-o-o, at what point did the "calling off of the dogs" take place? When did common sense/common courtesy and sportsmanship kick in? Answer? It didn't. Could Bo, Woody, JoePa and, with Neb coming in next year, Dr. Tom Osbourne have dialed up 100? sure. Did they? No, the difference? A thing called class. Here's hoping there will be more of it. As for BCS aspirations....schedule something other than patsies in the OOC portion of the schedule, and then manage to beat a run of the mill lower tier pac10 school at home with something other than just being lucky...try that bucky!

Their backups were in for the entire 4th quarter, can you fault them for trying hard? The only other action that QB has gotten is in a 70-3 win over Austin Peay. He only gets in when the game is out of hand and you want to tell him he can't try to score?

And by the way, they only threw the ball 3 times in the 4th quarter, so obviously they reigned it in.

Nebraska scored almost at will against outmanned Minnesota in recording an 84-13 win over the Gophers.

NU rolled up its biggest score ever against an NCAA Division I-A team and its most overall since a 100-0 win over Nebraska Wesleyan in 1917.

It was the worst defeat suffered by Minnesota in 100 years of college football (ironically, Nebraska's worst-ever defeat was a 61-7 loss at the hands of the Gophers in Lincoln in 1945).

The entire 60-man travel squad had played before the end of the third quarter. Irving Fryar broke Johnny Rodgers' Nebraska wingback record for reception yards with 138 on just two catches — 70- and 68-yard touchdowns, the longest receptions of his career, and the longest passes of Turner Gill's career.

I wouldn't say that it is classy to hang 83 on a weaker team, but if the weather had been cooperating last week would I have felt bad if Denard had thrown 5 TDs to Roundtree? Nope. I would have been happy to see Denard getting sharp for next week. And if Kennedy got in the game, I would have loved to have seen him score too.

The thing that bugs me is that people compare our near win against Indiana to subsequent blowouts by other teams over Indiana. Due to injuries that occurred against us and during the following week, Indiana played OSU literally without half of their starters. They have been decimated by injuries as much as just about anybody, maybe even as much as Purdue. The problem is not just that Wisconsin blew out Indiana, but that it is not even a full strength Indiana team. That is why the 83 points, although impressive on the TV ticker, doesn't mean much.

What makes me upset about all this hoopla is that if Oregon goes out and hangs 80-some on their opponent this week, no one will bat an eye. The pundits would chalk it up to a "high powered offense getting it done against inferior competition" or something like that. As soon as it's a team from the Big-10, though, it's unsportsmanlike and unbecoming of the university in question. My guess is that the people who are making noise about this situation are the same as those that were squawking when we beat Illinois in 3OT and believe that the spread won't work in the Big-10. Quit living in namby pamby land and deal with it.

I'm sure they wanted to garner some attention, and even though it has been mostly negative, the Badgers did get everyone talking. I'm guessing that was what they wanted in the first place. As some people say, any press is good press.

They had their backups in. There aren't that many opportunities to get backups some practice in real games. The coaches didn't even think that Bielema ran up the score. I really don't think that it's a big deal; forcing your backups to take a knee would rob the perpetual backups of their moment of glory and wouldn't make the fans any happier.

It's not bad sportsmanship to play the game you're supposed to play, as long as you have your backups in.

Rhoden ask where is the compassion and mercy. What a joke, this is college football played by men who know how to win and how to lose. I really doubt the Indiana players are as fragile as the NYT columnist makes them out to be. If the NYT really wants to point out a lack of compassion and mercy and sportsmanship, then look at the cheap shot Fairley took at Murray.

The biggest problem I see here is a reporter who lacks an understanding of the game of football.

sounding political, this is just a sign of how our society is trying to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Little league doesnt keep score so noone knows if they lose. Schools are beginning to toy with the idea of not giving failing grades. If team 'A' is better than team 'B', its incumbent upon team 'B' to stop team 'A'. If they cant, then its a great learning tool and a chance for the coaches of team 'B' to teach the players and find out where they can get better. If you dont know how bad you are, how can you improve?

When watching Bo's teams crush opponents in the 70s, at no point did I ever think, "that's enough". I always wanted more, more, and more. It used to drive me crazy when Lloyd came along and started taking a knee. When Bo was coaching, the only reason for taking a knee was because you were worried something bad might happen in a close came. Taking a knee to be nice to the opponent falls under the mambie, pambie heading and I just hate it. If you can score 100, more power to you. This idea that you shouldn't make an opponent feel bad just cracks me up.

The Wisconsin coach, I can't stand him so much I can't bring myself to say his name, is an arrogant asshole for many reasons. The score against IU is not one of them. The 2 pt conversion against MN earlier this year is a bigger deal than the IU score. Who still uses their chart in the 4th quarter up 3 or 4 scores against a team that hasn't moved the ball all day? He can shove that chart up his smug little ass is what he can do. I hope Michigan can put up a bunch this week and send him home dazed and confused.

I realize some of you saw the word "compassion," took the bait, and hopped on your THIS IS BIG TEN FOOTBALL soapbox, but you missed the point. He did run up the score in a classless manner.

No one suggests that the offense should take a knee. No one suggests that they should not try their hardest. These are ridiculous strawman arguments.

Sportsmanship is putting in the backups when the game is well in hand - he did this, possibly later than most people would, but at least he did. Sportsmanship is going for it on 4th down when in FG range and up 50 points and not calling a gadget play - UW kicked the FG. Sportsmanship is mostly about playcalling, though. You simply don't pass the ball unless it's a long handoff or 3rd down or something. You run the ball and wear down the clock. UW continued throwing bombs and scored 24 in the 4th quarter.

Do you think a single person would have complained if UW continued to execute the basic rock offense they always run and won 100-14 with the backups in? No. UW went play action bomb with the express intention of running up the score. They went misdirection with the naked bootleg keeper to go over 80. That's classless and poor sportsmanship.

UM never gets accused of running up the scores on Delaware State, BGSU and the like. We put in the backups and ran for like 400 yards. It's on them to stop our basic ground game with the backups in. If our backups are better than theirs, too bad.